Star Tribune - Representative Huntley on Health Reform
Duluth DFLer in health reform spotlight
KEVIN DUCHSCHERE, Star Tribune
As debate rages over President Obama’s plans to reform health care, a low-key Duluth medical professor who presides over health care debates at the Minnesota State Capitol has assumed an uncommonly high profile in some rarefied national circles.
State Rep. Tom Huntley, one of the Legislature’s most influential voices on health care, was among a coalition of legislators from around the country who this week convinced the influential National Conference of State Legislatures to back the public health insurance option that is key to Obama’s health care reform strategy.
The group’s approval of that policy Thursday was a quick counterpoint to strong concerns raised last weekend at the National Governors Association meeting about the potential cost to states of Obama’s plans.
“I want to give the president as much clout as we can” by backing the embattled public option, Huntley said from the legislators’ weeklong meeting in Philadelphia.
Then, just last month, Huntley was the lone Minnesotan among legislators from 22 states who were summoned to the White House to discuss health care with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and health reform czar Nancy-Ann DeParle.
He has been asked to form a White House working group on health care reform in Minnesota to collaborate with similar groups in other Midwestern states in funneling ideas to the Obama administration.
Those meetings have left Huntley optimistic that change will happen on the federal level.
“It seems to me that the [U.S.] House is going to pass something and the [U.S.] Senate is going to pass something, and the president is going to weigh in on the conference committee,” he said.
Before that happens, the 16-year DFL House veteran himself hopes to influence the debate and achieve his long-held goal of improving health care while containing costs.
It is an effort that has proven slow and difficult in Minnesota, consuming Huntley’s attention as chair of a Health Care Finance Committee and co-chair last year of a state health care reform task force.
But his ideas are resonating in a solution-hungry Washington dominated by Democrats in the White House and Congress. The best way to cut costs, Huntley says, is to reward doctors for keeping people healthy rather than just for treating them when they’re already sick. Replace fee-for-service, he says, with payment for outcomes and performance.
“My biggest interest is payment reform, because you can’t really change the health care system unless you change the way you pay for it,” he said.
‘Not an ideologue’
The St. Paul native with a Ph.D. in biochemistry has taught at the University of Minnesota Duluth medical school since 1973.
He served on the Duluth City Council and as commissioner of the Duluth Seaway Port Authority before defeating a Republican incumbent for the House in 1992. Huntley wins most reelection battles by landslides.
“He’s taught doctors for 30 years, so he comes at health care with a unique perspective and an understanding of how doctors make their decisions in different parts of the country,” said Mary Rosenthal, director of special projects at Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Healthcare Minnesota, which represents 14,000 health care workers in the state.
Huntley is an advocate of “medical homes” — a system of coordinating care for patients, especially those with costly chronic conditions, under the direction of a single primary care doctor. Such a system would eliminate duplicative services and cut back on expensive specialists.
That represents Huntley’s largely pragmatic approach to the health care debate, said state Rep. Jim Abeler, R-Anoka, who is vice chair of Huntley’s Health Care Finance Committee. Huntley and state Sen. Linda Berglin, chair of the Senate’s Health Budget Committee, have long been key players in the state’s health care debates, Abeler said.
Huntley is “thoughtful and open to suggestions — he just wants it to work. He’s not an ideologue,” Abeler said.
Although Huntley supported a public option at the state legislators meeting this week, his personal preference leans toward health care co-ops — nonprofits owned by consumers to provide care to families and small businesses.
After the economy, health care is the next top concern at the conference this week, Huntley said.
“Almost everyone [here] understands that if we don’t transform the health care system, our economy is not going to be competitive with other countries,” he said.
“Everyone agrees that we have to do this and we have to do it quickly.”
Kevin Duchschere • 651-292-0164
